and trying to
rouse up clodhoppers to the interests of their country,--and all the
time my darling at home was alone, and breaking her heart about me! By
Jove! if I'd only known! When I came back this morning to all this
misery--I told Neville to send in my resignation. I repeated the same
thing to him the last thing before I left the house."

"But you might have waited a day or two," said Lorimer wonderingly.
"You're such a fellow of impulse, Phil--"

"Well, I can't help it. I'm tired of politics. I began with a will,
fancying that every member of the house had his country's interests at
heart,--not a bit of it! They're all for themselves--most of them, at
any rate--they're not even sincere in their efforts to do good to the
population. And it's all very well to stick up for the aristocracy; but
why, in Heaven's name, can't some of the wealthiest among them do as
much as our old Mac is doing, for the outcast and miserable poor? I see
some real usefulness and good in _his_ work, and I'll help him in it
with a will--when--when Thelma comes back."

Thus talking, the two friends reached the Garrick Club, where they found
Beau Lovelace in the reading-room, turning over some new books with the
curious smiling air of one who believes there can be nothing original
under the sun, and that all literature is mere repetition. He greeted
them cheerfully.

"Come out of here," he said. "Come into a place where we can talk.
There's an old fellow over there who's ready to murder any member who
even whispers. We won't excite his angry passions. You know we're all
literature-mongers here,--we've each got our own little particular stall
where we sort our goods--our mouldy oranges, sour apples, and
indigestible nuts,--and we polish them up to look tempting to the
public. It's a great business, and we can't bear to be looked at while
we're turning our apples with the best side outwards, and boiling our
oranges to make them swell and seem big! We like to do our humbug in
silence and alone."

He led the way into the smoking-room--and there heard with much surprise
and a great deal of concern the story of Thelma's flight.

"Ingenuous boy!" he said kindly, clapping Philip on the shoulder. "How
could you be such a fool as to think that repeated visits to Violet
Vere, no matter on what business, would not bring the dogs of scandal
yelping about your heels! I wonder you didn't see how you were
compromising yourself!"

"He never told _me_